Thankfully, writing mediums have evolved drastically over the last several thousand years. I am extremely grateful that I can speedily type my thoughts into a blog while sitting at my dining room table instead of laboring over a wall of hieroglyphics to get my point across. As with any type of change, new writing mediums present new opportunities and new challenges, creating the need for adjustment to these new situations. I personally have had a number of challenges I face with modern writing media forms.
Of course, I wasn’t around when hieroglyphics were all the rage, but I have had to make some adjustments to how I write out my thoughts even though I have used modern forms of writing (Word documents, etc) for the entirety of my adult writing experiences. One of my largest constraints is also a great affordance of digital writing. The capability to quickly and easily publish your written thoughts to the public is an affordance of digital writing and a fantastic tool, but it has caused me trouble on some occasions because I have published my thoughts to the public on social media without properly editing my instinctual responses. These improperly expressed thoughts could have been more specific and written in a manner that informed the audience of my true meaning.
A great affordance of this new digital age is that writers can provide their readers direct access to the resources that will back up what the writer is saying. This direct access can be provided by an embedded YouTube video, a re-tweet or a hyperlink inserted in the text, along with various other options. I do not utilize this tool nearly enough, particularly when writing my blog posts.
I think there is a bright future ahead for the writers of the current world. Some of the most famous authors in the world did not have access the affordances that we do and yet they created masterpieces. So now, what great things we can achieve in the literary world with the great minds we have among us! I can honestly say that I am excited to explore the multiple affordances that digital media provides and overcome my struggles with the constraints of this form of media.
Clarity with Clara 